My Broken Mariko

My Broken Mariko is a short 4 chapter manga about loss. Well, it's more about a woman whose best and only friend kills herself and she goes on an adventure with her ashes. The facial expressions of the main character and everyone else are highly stylized and exaggarated in a comical way, I thought this was quite obvious, but after reading some MAL reviews I feel like this flew over peoples heads and they really thought the main character was some caricatureish, hysterical person?? With that in mind the manga, which deals with extremely sad and heavy matter, manages to turn into something more light hearted and bittersweet. It still had me teary eyed, but the unusual contrast of the plot and the pace coupled with the facial expressions kept me in check lol. The character of Mariko is, in my opinion, a really great portrayal of an abused woman that struggles BPD due to her rough childhood trauma. The clinginness, posessiveness, self-destructive behaviour, self harm, lack of good relationships in her life... It's very accurate, and sad. The way the main character, Shii, is pissed and angry at Mariko, the way she admits their friendship was not ideal and perfect - I think it's a good portrayal of losing someone you loved but they were extremely flawed and it wasn't their fault. It's bound to make you confused, it's bound to make you want to help them yet be extremely frustrated and annoyed by them. The manga isn't anything crazy deep but the story it wants to show us, is shown well. Everything you need to know about Mariko is presented through short flashbacks which are more than enough to piece the whole puzzle together, to imagine how their friendship was. The ending of Shii's adventure is comedic, yet poetic as she ends up hitting a molester with the box containing Mariko's ashes and as the box opens the ashes are sent into the sea, as Shii intended to do. It's a short read, so I recommend it to anyone that likes to read things with a more serious subject matter hadnled lightly and female friendships.